Freshwater Marsh Ecopoetry Celebration

This event is sponsored by Playa Vista, Southwest Airlines, and 

Small World Books for the LA Poetry Festival.


From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 19, this event will honor 

the newest addition to the Ballona Wetlands Complex with readings 

by national poets Willis Barnstone, Jack Gilbert, Linda Hogan, Carolyn 

Kizer, Pattiann Rogers, and Richard Shelton.

             AND

L.A.-based Poets/Performers Richard Beban, 

John Densmore (Doors drummer),

B. H. Fairchild, Kaaren Kitchell, Harryette Mullen, Maoshing Ni, 

Aram Saroyan, John Trudell (poet/musician), Venice High Poets, 

and Alma Luz Villanueva.


There will be free Freshwater Marsh tours by electric vehicle.

IMPORTANT:   PARKING BY PERMIT ONLY

Because Fountain Park is small, and parking is limited, please carpool -- 

bring a car full of people. Cars without parking permits, or with only one 

person in the vehicle, even if you have a permit, will be turned away.

To get your parking permit: send an e-mail to:  beban@attbi.com  with:
> the name of the driver
> the license plate of the vehicle
> and how many folks will be in it the vehicle

You will receive back, by virus-free PDF attachment, a color parking pass 

GOOD FOR THAT VEHICLE ONLY which should be handed to the parking 

attendant when you arrive.   This parking pass can be printed out of Adobe 

Acrobat Reader (available free on the Web at 

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html) 

WHERE IS FOUNTAIN PARK?

Fountain Park is on Playa Vista Drive in Marina Del Rey, two blocks from the 

corner of Lincoln and Jefferson.   Go east on Jefferson to Playa Vista Drive, 

take a left, and you're there.

http://www.playavista.com/90094_location.asp#

WHAT ABOUT FOOD?  WATER?  AND BOOKS?

Bring a picnic lunch. There'll be no food concessions, but there 
will be free water, and, of course, toilet facilities. It's not THAT 
remote. 

The independent bookstore Small World Books will be selling books by all 
the readers, so bring your credit card. Readers will be available to sign 
after they perform.

AND CLOTHING?

Bring layers. Since it's near the ocean, it's impossible to tell if it'll be foggy 

or overcast or bright as the shining eyes of Athena.

HOW ABOUT PUBLIC TRANSIT?

The Santa Monica Big Blue Bus (#3 Lincoln Blvd.) stops at the corner of 
Lincoln and Jefferson.  Walk a block east on Jefferson, a block north on 
Playa Vista Drive, and you're there. No need to bother with parking permits, etc.

The #3 bus line map: http://www.bigbluebus.com/busroutes/map/index.asp?routeid=3. 

Park anywhere along Lincoln.  The bus ride is seventy-five cents.

If taking public transportation, please send an e-mail to beban@attbi.com to let 

them know you're going, so the park can plan accordingly for the crowd. 

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE:  ( WHEN WILL (My Favorite Poet) READ?)

Come early, stay all day. The schedule's in flux, but there will be printed 

programs provided upon arrival.

SO WHAT'S THIS FRESHWATER MARSH?

Playa Vista is building a new community in West Los Angeles on a site that 

includes the former Howard Hughes aircraft plant, where the Spruce Goose 

was built.  They are building a "smart growth" sustainable community, with heavy 

reliance on alternative-powered transportation, low energy consumption housing, 

and ecologically sound construction methods. They have an industry-leading 92% 

construction recycling rate.  They also have built a freshwater wetlands where 

housing and a golf course had once been planned by previous developers. This 

25-acre marsh will be officially opened on April 19. It will not only be a haven for 

birds and other wildlife, but will also greatly improve the quality of water flowing 

into nearby Santa Monica Bay, minimizing flows of urban runoff that degrade the 

adjacent salt marsh.

AND WHAT'S ECOPOETRY?

As poet Christopher Merrill writes, "a nature poem is at best a partial account of 

a subject too large for anyone to grasp."

But nature poets keep wrestling with the subject, and "nature poetry" is in the

process of evolving from the romantic pastoral lyricism of Whitman and 

Wordsworth to "ecopoetry," a genre still being defined, but which scholar 

Leonard Scigaj, in his 1999 study, Sustainable Poetry calls, "poetry that 

persistently stresses human cooperation with nature conceived as a dynamic, 

interrelated series of cyclic feedback systems."   And the scholar Laurence 

Buell writes that the best environmentally oriented works deal with, "the 

presence of the nonhuman as more than mere backdrop, the expansion 

of human interest beyond humanity, a sense of human accountability to the 

environment and the environment as a process rather than a constant or given."

Welcome to a day that celebrates the human and the nonhuman -- a day of 

ecopoetry. If you want to read more on the subject, we recommend Ecopoetry: 

A Critical Introduction, edited by J. Scott Bryson.  ISBN 0-87480-701-8.  At 

11:09 PM

Want a poem?  Click on LINKS at http://home.attbi.com/~beban/

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